Here to Help
by A Dozen Lemmings
Summary: She's ten years past the girl who shattered herself into so many shards in a desperate gamble for her world. For it's every iteration. And yeah she's never really sought help recovering from who she was or who she became. But that's just how it goes in the end. One never knows, not even the man himself, when The Doctor's going to show up to change the course of their lives


There's a man. With sad eyes and a tiny smile.

and it feels like, maybe, it's just for her.

But she does not want that smile, does not want those eyes.

And for all that she wishes some days he would talk to her and she could maybe fall in love with him…

She does not want to know a man who seems to know her. Her, that is still a fifteen year old girl, who is also a super villain. A sixteen year old girl who is also a warlord or a hollow eyed hero, The her, who became a monster to save everyone she loved and everyone else too.

Taylor Hebert looks at that sad bespectacled man and flinches from the truth in his eyes.

She does not want to know this man who can empathize.

Because when He talks to her for the first time and she feels the sound of his voice shivering through every nerve in her body.

She knows.

He's just like her.

A monster people needed.

Who wouldn't let himself run away.

A murderer, usurper, butcher, genocide, tyrant and savior…

An Oncoming Storm.

"Please don't make me do it!" She begs. She's so close to tears and she hates herself for it a little. Once upon a time she would have acted without revealing herself. Once upon a time was nearly a decade ago and a decade is not nearly long enough to find herself prepared to kill again.

The first man, the man with the tiny smile, is bound. He's the man she's seen in passing since she appeared on this world. Nineteen and exhausted, barely alive in her father's arms. He smiles at her, seemingly unconcerned by the gun to his head, nor the one she is holding on the two well dressed men behind him.

Nodding to the small tinker device he certainly seems to have anticipated having thrown out of his hands. He shrugs. Subtly enough she only barely catches it. Almost like he's saying

'Give that here, yeah.'

"You should just come with us Miss Hebert."

"It would be much quicker and far more painless that way."

"If you do not, there is always your father."

"Or, The Boy."

"Yes. The Boy."

That they know about Alec shocks a hitching sob out of her

The man standing with his wrists and elbows tied. Flinches. Like he's just seen a bad call made by a general on the field.

His eyes flicker for a moment. Compassionate. Granite Hard. Kind and Calculating.

The well dressed man behind him pushes him forward and down with a growled,

"No moving!"

Taylor flicks the device into his hands with the toe of her slipper. Disguising her own movement as a lurch to keep them in her line of sight.

Her finger has only just begun to depress the trigger when an oddly oscillated buzzing causes not just her own, but the two well dressed men's weapons as well, to disassemble in their hands. The short concrete tunnel echoing with the clanking of falling steel and tinkling of bouncing brass.

He whirls around on them. Face open and cheerful and bright. But his eyes shadowed and fathomless and old. With another oscillating buzz the well dressed men are none to gently locked rigid and fall like planks of wood.

"Now then, now then, now then. What ever shall I do with you two, I can't very well let you go, but I did just go to the trouble of saving at least one of you from a fairly terrible death. So that'd be a bit redundant… Ah… I know just the lady. Friend of mine. British armed forces. Sweet girl. Knew her uncle. But I digress."

Something screams at her when he turns around again. Something deep and primal and altogether terrified.

In a moment, she finds herself lifting the disassembled pistol grip in her hand, as though to fire at him.

"Miss Hebert?" He enquires softly of her. "Miss Hebert, I assure you, I mean you and your son and your father no harm. Do you think you might find it in yourself to stand down for me? Just a deep breath, it's over, you can step back. It's not too late. See? The situation's been contained. I'm happy. These two hooligans are well restrained. Everyone is relatively safe and no one had to die! Honestly I think that makes it a good day! Good days mean ice cream don't they? I think they ought to anyway. Would you like some ice cream? I'll buy!"

It's only as she hears the clatter of the pistol grip on the concrete that she realizes she started trying to wipe her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater.

"W-Who are you?"

"Ah, yes. Well I suppose introductions are in order. I am called The Doctor."


End file.
